Blog Archives

A member of the public reported a scene which showed a Gypsy woman trying to sell Basil Brush heather and pegs.

The episode of the children’s puppet programme was a repeat and was broadcast on digital channel CBBC.

Northamptonshire police confirmed they had received a complaint about a TV show featuring Basil Brush from a member of the public in February.

“The complaint was logged as an incident of a racist nature and our Hate Crimes Unit is investigating,” a Northamptonshire Police spokesman said.

Bridie Jones, of the England Romany, Gypsy and Irish Traveller Network, accuses the UK media of double standards when it comes to racism.

“I find it very upsetting and distressing that in this day-and-age the media will use a puppet to get their own negative views and opinions across of a group that is struggling to survive,” Mrs Jones told the BBC.

“They are not allowed to joke about blacks or Asians any more because they would be taken to court, but when it comes to Gypsies or the Irish travelling community they mock us – and to them it’s not racist.

“We are the last group of people in this country who you can openly mock and make racist jokes about – who else is there?”

Ofcom have received 78 complaints about the violence on an episode of Eastenders.

Considering the nature of this program, it’s about time. Each story tends to be about a gritty and realistic issue that is depicted in a darkly depressing way. Now add violence that effects a pregnant woman, and it gets worse.

The 7.30 – 8.00 slot is family viewing time. It should not be a time of violence and aggression. We do not full understand the effects of media violence one way or another, but if there is the slim chance that there is a knock on effect – say, showing violent TV does give people psychological ppermission to be violent and aggressive – then we should take not of this.

The fence is knackered all the way along. We have quotes to put up a big, solid fence – about £1,000 worth. If we can pay by installments, we might be able to do it.

The Mother had an affair. She chucked her boyfriend out, who wouldn’t go. Cue shouting.

She tried to do a runner – but the car broke down, so she came back.

She is now locking the children in the back garden (don’t know why they are not in school) while we assume she has a shag with her new man.

We have heard, through the walls and down the street, the children screaming (and I mean high pitched blood curdling screaming, not just loud irritating screaming), we have seen them stealing gravel from other neighbours, mistreating their new dog (kicking, leaving it alone for long periods to howl), a 6 year old playing with a claw hammer (and using it on what used to be a gate from our side of the fence, so…). They have dumped chairs between out shed and what is left of the fence.

Bear in mind, when we contacted the council to establish who owned the fence, they basically said it was none of our business and we didn’t want to get caught up in boundary law. Now, all boundary law states is that there is an invisble boundary wilt two dimensions (length, Height) and it actually doesn’t matter where you put the marker – however, after 12 years you can claim the boundary has moved. So, the Housing Association do not want to look after their own properties.

Did I say their own properties? What I meant was: They are a non-profit oranisation. The council transferred ownership to them after the Conservative privatisation of Housing in the UK. They are funded by the council. (So… Why privatise something if we are just going to be taxed for it anyway?). So, my Council Tax pays for that house. It also pays for the benefits that pay fot the rent. So why should I live next door to violent, irresponsible people who I then pay for?

We have written a letter to the council basically saying “Fuck you for not doing anything. Fuck you for trying to frighten us when we complain. If you don’t do anything with that fence, we will replace it from our pockets and then we will have the law behind us. If you do not respond to this letter, we will take it as a legal agreement that whatever and wherever we place a new fence will belong to us”

A TV ad for a pendant that claimed to ward off evil spirits has been banned by the advertising watchdog for exploiting the vulnerable.

The direct response TV advert in Hindi was run by MATV Punjabi in December last year, and featured a Ganesh rudraksh pendant that promised to promote good health and protect the wearer from bad luck.

A man was shown wearing the pendant and a protective shield then appeared around him. This image was followed by testimonials from satisfied customers and then a presenter, who said there was scientific evidence to back up these claims.

Monitoring staff at the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice, the body charged with writing TV advertising regulations, said that the advert flew in the face of its codes forbidding the promotion of the occult, psychic practices and exorcism.

The BCAP argued that the advert exploited the superstitious and the vulnerable. It also challenged the existence of scientific evidence to corroborate the testimonials.

Leicester-based MATV countered these arguments by saying that the rudraksh was comparable to Christians wearing a cross. It said that the pendant was sacred and was associated with Lord Shiva, one of the prominent Hindu gods.

However, the Advertising Standards Authority today ruled that the MATV ad breached the broadcast TV advertising standards code, which prohibits advertising for products or services within the recognised character of the occult.

The regulator also upheld the complaint that unsubstantiated claims and testimonies exploited vulnerable viewers.

“In the absence of clinically-controlled trials to prove the efficacy of the product, we considered that the claims were misleading,” said the ASA.

The ASA concluded that the ad can only be shown again if adequate proof is included to bear out the pendant’s alleged powers.

Do me a favour. Find your local Surestart Centre. Ask them what they are doing with the funding.

In Wincanton, there is a Surestart centre. It is officially the Surestart centre for this area. They haven’t even managed to employ someone for it. People who work at it don’t even know it’s a Surestart centre. This is how important the children are in this area. I will wager money that this is typical. You want to know why children are unruly, unpleasant and anti social? We have let them. And here is one way we have done that.

There are childcare facilities in the area desperate for the money who are already doing the job. Why is it that whenever a good idea is put in place, the wrong people get the funding?

Because we let them get away with it.

Do me a favour. Find your local Surestart Centre. Ask them what they are doing with the funding.

A TV campaign for Wrigley’s chewing gum accused of being racist has escaped a ban from the advertising watchdog.

The ruling comes just months after the launch campaign for Trident – Cadbury’s rival product – was pulled off air over the same issue.

The Advertising Standards Authority received complaints about four ads for Wrigley’s Orbit Complete chewing gum.

Viewers complained that the ads showed people of different ethnicities – Asian, black and oriental – acting “foolishly” in front of a white couple and were therefore offensive and racist.

In each case the ethnic person dressed up in a white suit “to play the role of new Orbit Complete” to show how the gum fights plaque between brushing.

In each case, the person is seen making ridiculous fighting moves in the air against no visible opponent because, states the ad, “obviously plaque is invisible”.

Wrigley pointed out that there were two other ads in the campaign – featuring a Caucasian man and a Caucasian woman – and that it intended to make a range of TV ads “representative of a modern multicultural society”.

The ASA ruled that the ads were “merely intended to be a humorous depiction of various members of the public giving their own dramatic interpretation of fighting invisible plaque”.

While Wrigley’s ads escaped a ban, Cadbury’s campaign for a competitor brand, Trident, fell foul of the regulator.

In March, the ASA moved to ban the launch TV commercial after a massive 519 complaints from viewers.

The first ad showed a black “dub poet” speaking in rhyme with a strong Caribbean accent in what looked like a comedy club.

Viewers complained that TV ads were offensive and racist because they believed they showed offensive stereotypes and ridiculed black or Caribbean people and their culture.

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned an ad for Cadbury’s Trident chewing gum after more than 500 complaints that it was racist.

The ruling against the ad, which was first aired on MediaGuardian.co.uk last month, derails Cadbury’s £10m marketing bid to break Wrigley’s near-monopoly of the UK gum market.

The first ad shows a black “dub poet” speaking in rhyme with a strong Caribbean accent in what looks like a comedy club.

The series of four TV and one cinema ads, created by ad agency JWT, encourages viewers to take part in a “gum revolution” and try the new Trident chewing gum.

The ASA has received 519 complaints about the ad.

Viewers complained that TV ads were offensive and racist because they believed they showed offensive stereotypes and ridiculed black or Caribbean people and their culture.

Some viewers also challenged that the ad was offensive and insensitive because Trident was the name of the Metropolitan Police’s “black-on-black” gun crime initiative.

Cadbury Trebor Bassett argued that the campaign had in fact been inspired by revolutionary poets and the lead character had been chosen because he had a “charismatic quality that appealed to the target audience of 16- to 34-year-olds”.

Further, Cadbury provided research covering the first three weeks of the campaign to show that there was a decline in the number of people finding the ads offensive and an increase in those who found it fun.

The ASA noted that while Cadbury had undertaken “careful consumer research” before the campaign launch and consulted members of the British African Caribbean community, its own findings had shown that the ads were likely to result in a polarised reaction from viewers with one in five finding them offensive.

Complainants to the ASA included a comment that the ads had a “near Driving Miss Daisy degradation”.

The ASA noted that from the complaints many viewers had been offended by what they saw as the “negative stereotype of black or Caribbean people and their culture”.

The ASA ruled that the ads should not be shown again.

However, it did not uphold complaints about the Trident brand name and the Met Police initiative.

The ad watchdog ruled that the chewing gum brand had existed for over 40 years in global markets and concluded that it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence in this point.

I believe the fence has been systematically broken by the neighbors children. We have witnessed the 6 year old boy kicking it until you can climb through. Which he has done.

If it is our fence, that would be criminal damage.
If it is the landlords fence, it is effecting the value of our house.
If it effects the value of our house, that is breaking the contract the tenants have with the landlord.

I really hope you can’t sympathize with me. I would not wish it on anyone.

They are not bad people – although, I think he is claiming sickness benefit and working on the side, while she has had 5 children and uses it as an excuse to not work – so, maybe there is an argument to say they are just sponging. But then again, maybe they have had a hard life.

It has now gone quiet. An unusual state here. Between 9 and 10 this morning, the children where out playing. D_ was being told off at 9.20, L_ was screaming that “he was doing it” at 9.45, plus the general unidentified screams of children playing in between.

So far – not too bad. No one has threatened anyone else. No loud swearing. Just some unidentified kicking and rock moving.

Yesterday, we came back from some shopping. The children always see us (I think that’s why they kicked a hole in the fence – but that is another story). “Where have you been?” come the shout. I ignore it, but Tammy responds – “Shopping, Sweetie”. I don’t hear much of the rest of the conversation, but I do hear L_ call her “dickface”.

Please bear in mind, he is only 6. And I think he gets called much worse.

Well, when i say moan about – whinge endlessly about how useless and crap most things are and how they stop you getting on with what you actually want to do but you can’t because you are too busy filling your life up with pointless things to do with things you need to pay huge amounts of money for and then they become obsolete which means they will get dumped which is bad for the environment but you need to use them to tell people to stop using them to save the environment but using those things actually stops you doing the thing you wanted to without them so it’s all that things fault and you should have done it without using the thing, but didn’t.

E.G. Computers. I have made albums with a 266 mhz PII PC. Yet now, you need a dual core just to load word. Cars. You could fix a VW camper with a pair of tights. Now you need a PC just to change the tyres.

My problem is not change, it is unnecessary change. In the same way that oasis were shit, so is an iPod that freezes. I don’t care what your collection of MP3’s are like, if they don’t play there’s no point (I’m sure there’s a zen proverb in that – ‘if you slap a broken clickweel ipod on the counter, but there is no customer services person to witness it – will it ever make a noise again?)

So – My problem is the shiny object syndrome that we all succumb too. it may be that flash car. It may be that flash web site. It may be that flash of breast that suddenly makes whatever the product was a bit more interesting. It may be that flashy theory about the end of the world / it not being the end of the world / the root cause of societies problems / how to make a million without working ETC.

My problem is that businesses know me better than I know myself. And they will use that to convince us that any old tat is the next greatest thing that you must buy into.